The Project Pad

Nice work on the rear panel.

That R8 is sexy as hell. Good job on the body work as well.

Looking good Sam! The R8 looks fantastic too!

What turbos? I didn't know you guys could do the tuning. I might have a couple of phone calls to start making hehe.

Hank

Hank wrote:What turbos? I didn't know you guys could do the tuning. I might have a couple of phone calls to start making hehe.

Hank

5758s. It feels like it's near the max of those, which is probably good or we'd keep adding power to an engine that is not known for handling much more very well. We can do ME7, ME9, and ME17 tuning on-site.

Got into filler today. Everything is done and sanded except the back panel and anything I might run into on the roof. The back panel is going to be a pain, there are some high spots I could've done better on...already through two rounds of filling and sanding and need to do some more. What a mess, and it's hot and humid outside.



Sam

Looks awesome!

So maybe I missed something, but did you basically fix the rear panel just by pounding out from the inside? Or was the solution more exotic?

That turned out really nice Sam

The technique is outlined in this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000O3R1OQ?vs=1.

Essentially, you bend, not beat the damage out. The force is applied by a dolly, and the stress is relieved by tapping with a hammer. Both tools are specially made for metal repair.

Gonna keep it single stage? or go base clear?

Probably doing base/clear. The car was previously resprayed with base/clear. Clear is a pain in the balls to spray because of the overspray, but talking with a bunch of people it is the way to go--you can fix errors without burning through your color coat.

Sam

SEStone wrote:Probably doing base/clear. The car was previously resprayed with base/clear. Clear is a pain in the balls to spray because of the overspray, but talking with a bunch of people it is the way to go--you can fix errors without burning through your color coat.

Sam

And it's less likely to turn pink.

to be fair the original single stage held up better than just about anything that came out of american paint shops. It is tough to beat a base clear for prettiness, on the flip side its tough to beat summit's prices for single stage paint kits.

I really tend to like single stage.

My 635csi is rusty as can be, dash and all weather stripping is cracked, etc. The car was never sheltered from the sun. However, that car is the shiniest rusty car there has ever been. The non-metallic paint colors of that era BMW were single stage, and they can be buffed to a beautiful shine for 40+ years. That wont happen with any clear coat put through the same abuse.

I'd go single stage. Who cares if it turns pink as long as you can buff it to red whenever required!

mr_aj_johnson wrote:to be fair the original single stage held up better than just about anything that came out of american paint shops. It is tough to beat a base clear for prettiness, on the flip side its tough to beat summit's prices for single stage paint kits.

I've been a frequent flyer to www.spaceagepaint.com here in Mesa, AZ. I'm paying a premium versus buying online, but they're open seven days a week, have all the professional quality supplies and materials, and super, super knowledgeable staff. I'm on a first name basis with half of them...hopefully I can show them a cool car they helped me build in a couple weeks.

So far I'm using 3M, U-Pol, and Matrix paints and supplies. Really good stuff, easy to use and consistent. I haven't added it up yet, but I'm probably about $100-150 deep into the project and I'm about to buy epoxy, 2K, and masking/painting supplies. I'm anticipating total cost in the $400-600 range said and done, plus like 60-80 hours of work.

Sam

Oooh, be sure to give some feedback on the epoxy paint. You going to brush on? or spray it? You might actually enjoy a Youtube show called Project Synchro. Just started a couple of months ago and he's going through all the hassles of painting the cage, underside of the car, and next up the outside. Car itself is pretty cool too -A rally prepped mk2 golf synchro conversion.

mr_aj_johnson wrote:Oooh, be sure to give some feedback on the epoxy paint. You going to brush on? or spray it? You might actually enjoy a Youtube show called Project Synchro. Just started a couple of months ago and he's going through all the hassles of painting the cage, underside of the car, and next up the outside. Car itself is pretty cool too -A rally prepped mk2 golf synchro conversion.

It's epoxy primer--not topcoat. The primer is sprayed with a paint gun and seals the metal/finish underneath to prevent rust later on. I'll be painting with automotive laquer.

mr_aj_johnson wrote:to be fair the original single stage held up better than just about anything that came out of american paint shops. It is tough to beat a base clear for prettiness, on the flip side its tough to beat summit's prices for single stage paint kits.

If you get single stage from summit do not get anything metallic, great paint system, but without a booth nearly impossible to get a good paint job....

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SEStone wrote:

mr_aj_johnson wrote:Oooh, be sure to give some feedback on the epoxy paint. You going to brush on? or spray it? You might actually enjoy a Youtube show called Project Synchro. Just started a couple of months ago and he's going through all the hassles of painting the cage, underside of the car, and next up the outside. Car itself is pretty cool too -A rally prepped mk2 golf synchro conversion.

It's epoxy primer--not topcoat. The primer is sprayed with a paint gun and seals the metal/finish underneath to prevent rust later on. I'll be painting with automotive laquer.

Ah, I thought you meant epoxy paint- like used on the underside of cars after you strip off all the rubber snot. My bad.

Another 18 hours in two days and many more since last Sunday into this, but at least I have something to show for it .

After three rounds of filler on the back of the car since last weekend, I felt some imperfections that I confirmed after sanding a guide coat of dark grey primer. Sure enough, there were three or four ridges in the compound curve that were coming through the filler once sanded. No bueno. I grabbed the grinder and pulled all the filler off Thursday night, planning on spraying primer on Saturday. I did some more work to the panel, getting rid of the high spots to create a couple mild low spots, which could be filled. I got a couple good layers of filler down and some glaze on the edges and begun to feather.




I also removed the interior pillar panels, headliner, and sunroof seal, and began to prepare the roof. The headliner was toast, so it was a good excuse to get that out of the car and figure out how I'm going to address it. The pillar trims had been out before, lots of broken clips, a few custom screws, and some misc. damage to them. I have to keep telling myself I am going to be reinstalling it, and it can all be cleaned up. Maybe not by BBQ, but eventually--gotta look sharp inside and out, this is a shitload of work to go through if this is just a 'track car'.

Anyways, the workweek scramble ended Friday when I sanded down the outside door trims. Does anyone know what these are made out of? I had some issues on these with the material flaking off near the edges. Touch it with 180 grit sand paper and a piece could come off. These didn't get primered yet, I'll likely be spray bombing them sometime this week after an appropriate trip to Space Age. I also need to do the c-pillar base covers, windshield trims, headlight trims, and mirrors.

Anyways, I hit the hay Friday ready to go pick up supplies Saturday and head over to my friend Jason's house to do the deed. Three and a half hours and about $350 later, I had 2K primer, etching primer, all the activators, tons of new sandpaper, mixing supplies, HVAC filters for the shop fans, acetone for cleaning guns, plastic, tape, and paper. We had quite a bit of work to do before we could spray, which ended up taking a lot of time to complete. First we pulled the windows, seals, and trim. This all had been left in for the last rebuild, so there was a big line that was lifting up where the edge of the trim had been which had to be sanded down and prepped. Other sanding was completed. Chips on the body were found and filled. We did some remaining work on the rear panel, using a Rolok wheel to remove one high spot and fill in the rest to nearly perfection. Finally we had to mask, lay down etching primer on any bare metal areas, then spray 2K high build.






I used Matrix high build primer, which is good stuff but is very thick. We sprayed it with a smaller-than-recommended 1.5mm tip, which caused it to come out a bit dirty. The entire car is primed, but it has a rough texture I'll have sand the shit out of everywhere to get smooth. That's the point of high build though; to lay down a thick sandable layer that you can block sand imperfections away with. Pretty sure it's going to be messy and I'm contemplating buying some power tools to speed the process along. Anyone who wants to come help, just let me know...

Sam

Helluva process... half of me wants to try it and the other 60% says F-that, just pay a professional

PRY4SNO wrote:Helluva process... half of me wants to try it and the other 60% says F-that, just pay a professional

Oh, I forgot to mention we ended up getting all of this done at 4am. I was quoted $3-5k to refinish the car by a couple shops. I'm sure they would do an amazing job, but I don't have nearly enough money to consider that--I think I'm coming out way ahead, even if I've spent a summer in Phoenix outside sanding a car.

Sam

I've painted 4 cars now, it sucks, but saving 1-2k is worth it.

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I think it will be totally worth it. Good job! I would like to do this to my 6 if I had more time to work on it and set up a paint booth... I do have a place to do it now, just no time.

I've thought (a_lot) about doing the prep work myself, to save cash and make sure it's done as meticulously as possible, then send it to a pro shop. Saves labour on the prep and disassembly/reassembly... but I've heard some shops (typically the better ones) won't touch a car that's been DIY prepped. So IDK. Guess I'll have to shop around when I get to that point.

This thread definitely provides some motivation and reference that it's a doable and worthwhile exercise.

PRY4SNO wrote:I've thought (a_lot) about doing the prep work myself, to save cash and make sure it's done as meticulously as possible, then send it to a pro shop. Saves labour on the prep and disassembly/reassembly... but I've heard some shops (typically the better ones) won't touch a car that's been DIY prepped. So IDK. Guess I'll have to shop around when I get to that point.

This thread definitely provides some motivation and reference that it's a doable and worthwhile exercise.

The painting is arguably the quickest and easiest part of this process. If you can prep a car, have a clean space, and a spray gun/air compressor, you can paint a car. So far, I'd say the order is sanding>repair>disassembly>painting>masking in terms of difficulty of everything.

Sam